Lack of GPs in North Kildare 'not good enough'

A Fine Gael TD for North Kildare has said the lack of GPs in the north county is simply “not good enough.”

Deputy Joe Neville was speaking in the Dáil recently, when he asked the Minister for Health to state the number of GP practices or primary care centres that have been introduced in north Kildare since 2020.

Deputy Neville further asked the Minister to state the number due to be opened in 2026, and if she would make a statement on the matter.

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Responding to Deputy Neville, the Minister of Health, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill confirmed that a total of eight primary care centres are operational in Kildare, three of which are in Kildare North.

The HSE, the Minister added, is also considering the development of a further centre to serve north-east Kildare.

Deputy Neville told the Minister there is a particular need for a primary care centre in Leixlip and Maynooth, which he says has a population of 60,000 between them, yet no serving primary care centre to date.

“Likewise”, Deputy Neville said, “there is a huge need for GPs.”

“I have known of many cases where people have come into our towns and have been refused a GP because there are no places available for them”, he said.

“They are stuck having to use their GP in the area from which they have come, be it a rural area or Dublin. They have to keep those GPs and, realistically, that is not good enough.”

The Minister told Deputy Neville she agreed there is a need to focus on primary care centres and to enable more GPs to come into public practice.

“The Deputy is right; we have a challenge in this regard. On the one hand, we cannot tell private GP practices where they should locate. That is a matter for them to determine. At the same time, we want to ensure they locate in areas of need, such as the Deputy’s constituency.

“He has suggested looking at some measures to create different incentives for GPs to either join a practice or physically extend a practice and how the State could offer the best support to them to do that.

“This is something the Deputy has mentioned to me before. Perhaps we might follow that up to see how we could consider that to create additional incentives for GPs to set up or expand practices in specified areas.”